In Ezekiel 16, the Lord used a parable to describe His people who had been as unfaithful as a wife is unfaithful to her husband – His people whom He had blessed and they in turn had put other things ahead of God, making idols of the very things God had blessed them with. Reading through this parable, I could not help but see the resemblance of this kind of unfaithfulness in America, among Christians and non-Christians. We so quickly fall in love with the things of this world and are willing to sacrifice so much of what God has blessed us with in order to have more and more of what the world has to offer instead of running after what God has to offer.
“On the day you were born, no one care about you. Your umbilical cord was not cut and you were never washed, rubbed with salt, and wrapped in cloth. No one had the slightest interest in you; no one pitied you or cared for you. On the day you were born, you were unwanted, dumped in a field and left to die. BUT I CAME BY AND SAW YOU THERE, helplessly kicking about in your own blood. As you lay there, I said, ‘Live!’ And I HELPED YOU to thrive like a plant in the field…
“Then I bathed you and washed off your blood, and I rubbed fragrant oils into your skin. I gave you expensive clothing…I gave you lovely jewelry…And so you were adorned with gold and silver…You ate the finest food…You looked like a queen, and so you were! Your fame soon spread throughout the world because of your beauty. I dressed you in my splendor and perfected your beauty, says the Sovereign Lord.
“But you thought your fame and beauty were your own. So you gave yourself as a prostitute to every man who came along. Your beauty was theirs for the asking. You used the lovely things I gave you to make shrines for idols, where you played the prostitute. Unbelievable! How could such a thing ever happen?…
“It seems you can never find enough new lovers! And after your prostitution there, you still were not satisfied. You added to your lovers by embracing Babylonia, the land of merchants, but you still weren’t satisfied.
“What a sick heart you have, says the Sovereign Lord, to do such things as these, acting like a shameless prostitute…so eager for sin…you are the opposite of other prostitutes. You pay your lovers instead of their paying you!” – (Ezekiel 16:4-16, 28b-34)
Oh, help us, Lord! In a book that describes the wrath of God and His severe punishment on a nation that was unfaithful after He had done so much for them, He uses a parable that could easily be used to describe us. God blesses us with time and we spend it on ourselves. God blesses us with money and we use it to buy more of what the world has to offer. God blesses us with a tv and we watch unwholesome programs. God blesses us with beauty and we use it to bring attention to ourselves. God blesses us with beautiful bodies and we dress immodestly. God blesses us with a sense of humor and we participate in coarse joking. God blesses us with intelligence and we consider ourselves smart.
Forgive us Lord! Forgive us for the importance we put on the things of this world and on our own physical beauty; forgive us for embracing “the land of merchants” and always wanting more; forgive us for thinking that our fame and beauty are our own; forgive us for thinking anything You have blessed us with is ours to enjoy.
Dear God, may the words of Ezekiel 11:19-20 describe us as we return our attention to You and remove every trace of idols from our lives:
And I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them. I will take away their stony, stubborn heart and give them a tender, responsive heart, so they will obey my decrees and regulations. Then they will truly be my people, and I will be their God.